Lana gets a present
by DylaxfanFOREVER
Summary: "Tell me why!" She shouts at me. "Why? Why do you hate me!" "You wanna know why?" I yell back. "Here!" I shove one of my many diaries at her. "Here! This will tell you all you want to know, and more." Then I run, out the door, down the fire escape, and all the way to the graveyard. I HOPE SHE'S HAPPY, I think.
1. Prologue

**This is my first fanfic, like, _ever_, so I decided to do one of those cliché "characters read the books" stories. Except mine has a plot, and subplot. Sorry if it's bad, like I said, I've never written a fanfic before (I usually write original stuff). Hope you like!**

"Tell me why!" She shouts at me. "Why? Why do you hate me?!"

"You wanna know why?" I yell back. "Here!" I shove one of my many diaries at her. "Here! This will tell you all you want to know, and more." Then I run, out the door, down the fire escape, and all the way to the graveyard. _I hope she's happy_, I think.

Lana picks up the book Sammy shoved at here.

"'Diary: the Search for Snake Eyes'," she read aloud. She flipped through the pages until she came to the page that said _prologue_. Then she began to read...

Prologue

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't see it coming. She just passed off the heavy bag, and suddenly there I was, stuck. And even after I felt how heavy it was, I _still_ didn't know what was in it. How was I supposed to know? I'd never touched one before-never been that _close_ to one before. But the minute I looked inside, I knew I was in trouble.

Serious, heart-stopping trouble.

"Well, what does that mean?" she whispered to herself. Then she flipped the page.

**So, yay or nay? I'm in a hotel room right now, and I've already started the first chapter, so it will probably be posted later tonight (whether you like it or not). Have a smiley morning, afternoon, evening, or whenever you read this!**

**-Annalyssa**


	2. Chapter one

Chapter one

I don't generally hang out at the mall. It's full of biting shoes, shrinking clothes, and useless knickknacks. It's also full of poseur kids who think it's there private stage for rehearsing public coolness. Please. I get enough of that in junior high.

But the Santa Martina mall also has a video arcade, and if you know anything about my best friend, Marissa, you know that video games are the only thing that'll make her quit talking about softball. And since we're in the middle of gearing up for the Junior Sluggers' Cup tournament, softball's _all_ Marissa's had on her mind. For WEEKS [italicized]. She's working up plays, she's practicing after practice, she's even talked Coach Rothhammer out of her home phone number so she can run ideas by her in the middle of the night. You have to know Ms. Rothhammer to understand the significance of this-nobody's got her number, and I mean nobody. She teaches P.E. and eighth-grade science, and she's got a reputation for being really strict and really private. Like, is she married? We don't know. Does she have kids? Dogs? Horses? Flower beds? Nobody knows. I'll bet even Vice Principal Caan doesn't even know, that's how good she is at being private.

What I do know about Ms. Rothhammer is that she's the one person who wants to bring home the Junior Sluggers' Cup as much as Marissa does. Probably for different reasons-like, I know Ms. Rothhammer couldn't care less about us winning the school a party day. More likely it has to do with showing up Mr. Vince, who told her she'd never get her hands on the cup. Of course, that was last November, after our team beat his team in our schools playoffs, so maybe she's forgotten about that.

Then again, maybe not.

_Anyway_, the point is, Marissa Mckenze has been Softball Czar for weeks, and the past few days it's been driving me batty. And maybe I should've just said, "Marissa, enough! There's a life beyond softball!" but I _do _live in Santa Martina, a town where everyone from Heather Acosta, Princess Prevaricator, to Mayor Hibbs, Sultan of City Hall, is _into_ the game. So much that people play year-round. Rain or shine, mud or flood, people play.

So instead of telling Marissa something she'd never buy into anyhow, what I said was, "Hey, you wanna go to the mall and play some video games?" And since I'm _never _the one to suggest it, she said, "Are you kidding?" and off we went.

Now, I'm not big on playing myself. I don't have the quarters to spare. So while Marissa's seriously invested in the skill of electro-badguy annihilation, I'm more an observer than anything else. Sure, I'll play a few games just to keep her happy, but I'm pretty much a peanut gallery of one.

Good as she is, though, I get bored and wind up looking around at other stuff. People, mostly. And let me tell you, there are some pretty strange people in the arcade. I'm not talking about the kids, either. They just strut around, cussing and stuff, acting like they'll take you down if you look at them wrong. Like they could actually _catch_ you with the way they wear their pants halfway down their butts.

_Ew, _thought Lana.

No, the _adults_ are strange. It's men, mostly, and mostly they look the same- scraggly hair, faded band T-shirts, dirty jeans, and work boots. They come in alone, park themselves at the gun games, and shoot. They don't look at anyone or anything else, they just shoot. And good luck cutting in if you want a turn. I've seen kids try it, and let me tell you, it's _dangerous_.

There was a knock on the door, and Lana looked up. "Come in?" Lana said uncertainly. The door opened, and Warren's son -what was his name? Brady? No, Casey- opened the door.

"Hey," he said, looking around. "Sammy here?"

"Um, no, she just left," Lana said apologetically.

"Really? Because I called a few minutes ago and she was here."

"Yes, well, she and I had an unpleasant discussion and she lost her temper. Threw this book at me." Lana held up her book. Casey raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"Would you like to...?" Lana held up the book again.

"What's it about?"

Lana shrugged. "Just one of her diaries."

"Ummm... I don't think I should." Casey moved towards the door.

"Oh, she gave it to me," Lana waved off his misgivings. "She told me to read it. It's fine. C'mon," she coaxed at his uncertainty. "Don't you want to see what Sammy thinks of you?"

Casey sighed. "I'm going to regret this..." He muttered under his breath. Lana hid a smile and handed it to him. "So far she is hanging -isn't that what you kids say?- with Marissa at the video arcade. Casey nodded and kept reading.

Anyway, there I was, at four in the afternoon, surrounded by the noise of electro-fire, checking out the arcade clientele, when this girl with a big red-and-white Sears bag backs into me. Hard.

Does she say, Sorry? Or, Excuse me? Or even turn around and _look_ at me?

No.

_Well, how rude, _Lana thought.

She whimpers, "Jesus! Oh, Jesus!" and drags that bag in close, between her feet. He eyes are glued to the arcade entrance, and she's shaking. First it's just sort of a shiver, then a rumble; then she starts having her very own internal earthquake.

"What's the matter?" I ask her, but she still doesn't turn around and look at me. She just paws through her Sears bag and rearrange a yellow towel that's on top, then weaves the bag's cord handles together, shaking the whole time.

I look between the two video games we're standing in front of so I can get a clear shot of the entrance, but all I see is a bunch people milling around outside.

This girl is melting down about something, though, so I say to her, "Are you all right?"

"No! Oh, Jesus, no!" She turns to me, her eyes full of terror. "What am I going to _do_? He'll kill me! He'll kill us both!"

_ Both of you? _Lana thought. _Why would he want to hurt Sammy?_

"Who?" And I'm thinking, Whoa, now! Why would he want to kill _me_?

She doesn't answer. She just stays behind cover while she checks out the entrance.

"Do you want me to call the police?"

_ Good idea._

"No!" She turns back to me, looking even more scared than she had before. "No!"

"But-"

"Whatever you do..." Her shaking goes up a notch. "Oh Jesus, there he is!"

"Where?"

"Right over there!" she says, looking out into the hall of the mall. Only there is about thirty people roaming around out there. "Oh Jesus, what am I going to do? What am I going to _do_?"

"If you're that scared, why don't you let me call the police?"

She whirls around and says, "No! You hear me! They mess everything up! They put him away and now he's out! He's gonna kill me!"

"But if he's going to _kill_ you..."

"Oh Jesus, here he comes." She looks around frantically. "Is there a back door to this place?"

I shake my head.

"How am I going to get _out_ of here?" She goes back to looking outside, practically shaking herself to death.

Then I see him. I can just tell. It's the way he's walking. Slow, but, I don't know, _tight_. Like every step is for a reason and nothing better get in his way.

He's wearing a tight white tank T that shows off his muscles, and his hair is short on the sides, but longer on the top and gelled forward. There's a heavy gold cross around his neck and a beeper on the waistband of his baggy jeans, and there's no doubt about it-he's headed straight for the arcade.

She slumps down at my feet. "Hide me. You've got to hide me!"

"Hide you?" I look around and say, "there's no place _to_ hide!"

"Is he in?"

I look at the entrance. "He's hanging right outside."

"He'll be in. He can smell me."

"_Smell_ you?" I hadn't noticed any perfume on her, and the way she said it was weird.

"Oh, I think I remember this," Casey interrupted himself.

"Keep reading!" Lana chewed her nails.

"It's his way."

"Now he's in. He's... he's going down the first aisle." I squat down beside her and say, "Why don't you let me get security? Or we could get a bunch of people together and tackle him if he tries to to hurt you..."

She gives me a sad smile, then closes her eyes and mouthes a quick prayer as she makes the sign if the cross on her chest. And that's when I notice these weird sort of splashy scars on the inside of her left arm. Not down by her wrists, up higher. One zigzags side to side and the other overlaps it a little, zigzagging up and down. And I want to ask her if the guy she's so afraid of is the one who cut up her arm, but all of a sudden she stops shaking, slides her Sears bag toward me and says, "I'll meet you back here at... at seven. _Be_ here, you here me? Everything you need's in the elevator-go and get it. And don't let nothing happen to him!" She grabs my by the shoulders and says, "Do not, do _not_ call the cops! you hear me? Promise me!"

Everything was happening so fast. First she's scared to the death of this guy; then she doesn't want anything to happen to him. And what was that about the elevator?

But here eyes were so intense. It was like they hypnotized a nod out of me. And before I could ask her any questions, she said, "if I'm not back right at seven, _wait_ for me, you hear me? I _will_ be back." In a flash she's gone, crawling around the corner, then out the door.

I look around for the guy who's stalking her, and there he is, coming my way. I do my best to act cool, but let me tell you, this guy's creepy, and the closer he gets, the more I shrink back until I'm practically hugging a video game backwards.

When he's right beside me, he sniffs the air. Three times really fast, then slowly three times. And while he's sniffing, I'm noticing the tattoo and the top part of his left arm. It's the head of a cobra with eyes like DICE. They're popping out, with the ones facing forward. Real "snake eyes". And the mouth of the snake is open-like its in mid-strike, coming right at me.

Now, the tattoo's plenty scary, but when he turns and looks straight at me, my knees practically buckle. I'd never seen a face like his. He had hatred for eyes. Steel for a mouth. He almost didn't look human.

And while I'm dissolving into the front of a video game, he keeps looking straight at me, then sniffs the air and heads slowly out the door.

I had chills running all through me. Hard as she ran, that girl would never get away from him. He'd hunt her down until he found her. I could just tell.

"God, Marissa, what are we going to do?" I looked over my shoulder. "Marissa?"

"What?" Her finger's just a blur, punching the shoot button.

"Don't tell me you didn't see any of that...?"

Casey groaned. "That's just like Marissa..."

"Any of what?" Her finger's flying, fast and furious.

"Marissa!"

She looks at me for a split second. "What?"

"There was a girl in here, scared to death that this creepy guy was gonna kill her!"

"Hang on a minute, I've just about... Yeah!" She turns to me. "Okay, what?"

I shake my head at her. "You didn't see _any_ of that?"

"Any of what?"

"What I just told you! About the girl and the creepy guy."

"So where are they now?"

"They _left_."

"So...?"

"So do you think we should call the police?"

"About _what_?"

"Marissa!"

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about! I was in the middle of a game. It's noisy in here. I didn't even know you were talking to someone." She points to the Sears sack and said, "What's that?"

"She left it with me. I think she couldn't run with it. It looks kinda heavy. And I'm supposed to get some stuff of hers out of the elevator and meet her back here at seven."

Marissa squints at me. "_Why_?"

I shrug really big and say, "I don't know! That's just what she said!"

"How _do_ you get yourself into these things?"

_ The million-dollar question_, Lana thought.

"Hey, I just asked her if she was all right, and it turns out she _wasn't_. She was scared to death!"

"So why come in here? Why not call the police?"

"Marissa, I don't know! She was hiding, okay? And she was real clear about not calling the police. _real_ clear. She seemed, you know, _allergic_ to the idea."

"What did she do? Break out in hives?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, I'm not hanging around here until seven..."

"Neither am I! Grams would kill me." I reach for the Sears bag and say, "I'll just take this home and bring it back after... dinner."

"What's wrong?"

"It weighs a ton...!"

"What's in it?"

I put it back down and say, "Feels like a bowling ball!" and when I look inside, what do I see?

A brand-new Barbie giving me a bubble-head smile through a bubble pack.

Obviously that didn't weigh much. And nether did the puffy yellow towel underneath it. So I pull back the towel, muttering, "There must be something else..." And that's when I see it. "Marissa," I gasp. "Look!"

It was bigger than a bomb.

_Scarier_ than a bomb.

And it wouldn't be long until shrapnel went flying.

"Well, that wasn't much of a cliffhanger," Lana said indignantly.

"Do you want me to read another chapter?" Casey offered.

"Yes, _please_."

**:D I love Casey so much... XD**


End file.
